Shinto and Rastafarianism in the Eyes of Max Weber

Max Weber, a German sociologist, sees a religion as an agent of social change. While Emile Durkeim argued religion served to maintain social stability and harmony through the act of collective worship, Weber thought religion emerged to satisfy a social need in general. For him, a religion is shared values of any society, shaping one’s thoughts and giving people a sense of hope and something to believe in. Thus, it brings changes in social relations and produce real material effects by empowering and mobilizing them in realities.

Weber was particularly interested in religions of salvation due to their huge social consequences. He thought the need for salvation arises when people are faced with discrepancies between the reality they face and the ideal they pursue. (p 288) The religions of salvation try to resolve the gap between the real and the ideal, either by escaping from life’s imperfections or by gaining mastery over the world to bring it into conformity with the ideal. He called it asceticism, by which he referred to all the religious attempts to fight the evils of life and transform the world.

Religions that fall in this category include Shinto in Japan and Rastafarianism in Jamaica. Notwithstanding the geographical divide between the two, both religions have something in common. In Weberian perspective, the two had charismatic and traditional authorities behind them, which were supported by the elements of charisma and symbolism. However, the German political economist’s hypothesis that capitalism was a product of western mind did not prove right in Japan because of the hard work and strong entrepreneurship embedded in Japanese.

Shinto is the defining element of Japanese religion and culture. It has been around for mille...

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...Hill Co., 2001) p 511-515

Jacobs, A.J. Max Weber was Right about the Preconditions, Just Wrong about Japan: The

Japanese Ethic and its Spirit of Capitalism (The Open Area Studies Journal, 2010) p 1-18

Kessler, Gary E. Studying Religion: An Introduction through Cases (Third Edition, Columbus, McGraw-Hill Co., 2007) p132, 136, 162, 257-260, 268-275, 288, 289

Max Weber’s Charismatic Authority

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charismatic_authority

Max Weber’s Transformation Leadership Authority, New Mexico State University

http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/teaching/503/weber_links.html

Ono, Sokyo. Shinto: the Kami Way (Charles E. Tuttle Publishing Co., Inc. 1962) p 54, 95, 104, 122

Rasfatari Movement

http://www.jah.com/rastafari-movement

Roth, Guenther. Wittich, Clause. Economy and Society: an Outline of Interpretive Sociology (Volume 2) p 448-250